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Cults of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft and The Occult Tradition PDF
Cults of Cthulhu - H.P. Lovecraft and The Occult Tradition PDF
Cults of Cthulhu
H.P Lovecraft and the Occult Tradition
by Fra. Tenebrous
First published by Daath Press 1987, as a limited edition of
123 copies. Text revised 1993. This on-line edition November
1998 with kind permission of the author.
H.P LOVECRAFT
and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth
would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.2
There is a marked similarity between this passage and the
teachings of many actual secret societies of the past, including
the Assassins, the Gnostics, and the Templars, but in particular
to the Law of Thelema, as expounded by Lovecrafts
contemporary, Aleister Crowley. The main distinction is one
of moral interpretation whereas Lovecraft regarded his
ancient gods as essentially evil, Crowley saw the return of such
atavistic deities as being in full accord with the progression
of the Aeons.
Following The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft produced a series
of a dozen or more stories which contain the central core of
the inter-related mythology which later became known as the
Cthulhu Mythos. In these stories, he describes various rites
surviving on earth since the primordial reign of the Old
Ones, and preserved in more recent times in esoteric grimoires
such as the Necronomicon through which the evocation of
the alien gods could be effected. In The Case of Charles Dexter
Ward, he suggests that the very roots of the magical arts lie in
the ritual veneration of these trans-dimensional beings,
attributing a common and unifying source to the many and
diverse strands of occult belief. Over the centuries, these
ceremonies have been observed and mis-interpreted in terms
of black magic and devil worship.
A point to note here is that Lovecraft never actually used the
term Cthulhu Mythos, which was introduced after his death
by his protege, August Derleth. Cthulhu is only one of a
pantheon of deities which includes Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth,
Nyarlathotep, and ShubNiggurath, amongst others. The
manifestations of these beings varies from story to story
organised religion.
The mention of Dees name in connection with the
Necronomicon is interesting in that he was one of the few
magical adepts of the past who can present us with practical
evidence of communication with non-human entities. Dr. John
Dee was the astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, and worked with
a number of scryers, or seers, the most talented of which was
the Irishman, Sir Edward Kelly. Through the use of a magic
mirror of Mayan origin, Kelly made contact with certain spirits,
who communicated through him a series of magical Calls,
or Keys, in a language called Enochian. This language has
since been studied and analysed by many historians, who
confirm that it is indeed an authentic and consistent idiom,
without resemblance to any other still in existence. It is even
more remarkable that, in recently deciphered passages from
The Book of Enoch, words approximating to the names of the
Great Old Ones, as they appear in the Cthulhu Mythos have
been discovered.
From around 1930, Lovecraft periodically assured his
correspondents that he was about to give up writing, but forced
himself to continue to make the effort to produce new fiction.
In 1935, a year after the completion of his final story, The
Shadow Out of Time, he developed an illness which was
finally diagnosed in 1937 as cancer of the intestines, by which
time the disease has spread thought his trunk. He was admitted
to the Jane Brown Memorial Hospital, where he died on March
15, 1937, aged 46. He was buried three days later, in the family
plot at Swan Point Cemetery.
After his death, his friend and correspondent August Derleth
formed the Arkham House imprint, with the original aim of
saving Lovecrafts work from the obscurity of the pulp fiction
magazines in which it had first appeared, and to bring it to the
Notes:
1